Reflections by award-winning maritime historian Joan Druett, author of many books about the sea

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Sea charts

Beauty versus Accuracy

When I was searching for images for Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator, I got great pleasure from the many beautiful old charts I found. The map reproduced above was particularly intriguing, because it provided an excellent illustration of how little the old Pacific explorers knew, compared to Polynesian ocean lore.

Engraved by Pieter Goos for his book De zee-atlas ofte water-wereld (Amsterdam, 1667), this "sea-chart" has to be viewed sideways, with California invisibly off to the bottom right, and what little was known of Tasmania ("Van Diemen's Land") and New Zealand hovering about to the top left. Otherwise, the ocean is almost empty -- not Tahiti, no Samoa, no Tonga, no Fiji -- and yet it was drawn for the use of seagoing folk, such as captains, sailing masters, and trading agents, who intended to venture into this unknown region.

Pieter Goos was the son of Abraham Goos, an Amsterdam bookseller who specialized in maps and charts. As well as carrying on his father's business, Pieter produced pilot guides for mariners. His Zee-atlas was a bestseller, going through many editions.

No one, however, kept count of the number of travelers it sent to a watery grave.

I was reminded of this when the captain of the unfortunate Costa Concordia reckoned his ship hit an uncharted rock.

Is such a thing possible today? Maritime historian Bill Bunting contributed a useful and entertaining comment that demonstrates that even relatively recently all charts were not equal:

Forty-plus years ago I was the mate of a sailing vessel engaged on aworld voyage (he says). Previous owners had outfitted her chart locker withBritish, German, and US charts for many Pacific island areas. TheBritish charts were aesthetically the most beautiful, as elaboratelyengraved as old bank notes, and imparting more than a whiff ofempire, except that, with no colors, it was often not easy to figureout where the water ended and the land began. Lines of soundings werelikely to be attributed to the HMS PINAFORE or whatever a hundred ormore years ago, although presumably these were better than nothing.

The German charts were by far the most detailed, especially regardingfeatures of the land, except that it appeared that many of the islandhills and valleys were boilerplate added to fill in spaces which ifleft blank might suggest less than complete and thorough knowledge.

The US charts were the most utilitarian, and did not hesitate todisplay ignorance when appropriate. With an obvious color schemedifferentiating land from water, they were the easiest to use andthus the charts of choice, even though they projected all the romanceof a gas station road map.